George John Mitchell

(Redirected from George John Mitchell )

American politician, diplomat, and judge (born 1933)

"Senator Mitchell" redirects here. For other uses, see Senator Mitchell (disambiguation) .

George Mitchell

Mitchell in 1980

United States Special Envoy

for Middle East Peace In office
January 22, 2009 – May 13, 2011PresidentBarack Obama Preceded byAnthony Zinni (2003)Succeeded byDavid Hale Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission In office
November 27, 2002 – December 11, 2002 PresidentGeorge W. Bush Preceded by_Position established_Succeeded byLee Hamilton 8th Chancellor of the Queen's University, Belfast In office
May 5, 1999 – March 29, 2009Preceded byDavid Orr Succeeded byKamalesh Sharma United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland In office
January 3, 1995 – January 20, 2001PresidentBill Clinton Preceded by_Position established_Succeeded byRichard N. Haass United States Senator

from Maine In office
May 17, 1980 – January 3, 1995Preceded byEdmund Muskie Succeeded byOlympia Snowe

Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maine In office
October 5, 1979 – May 16, 1980Appointed byJimmy Carter Preceded by_Seat established_Succeeded byConrad K. Cyr United States Attorney

for the District of Maine In office
1977–1979PresidentJimmy CarterPreceded byS. Peter Mills Jr. Succeeded byJames BranniganPersonal detailsBornGeorge John Mitchell Jr.
(1933-08-20) August 20, 1933 (age 92)

Waterville, Maine , U.S.

Party Democratic Spouses

• Sally Heath

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  ​

  (m. 1961; div. 1987)​

• Heather MacLachlan

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  (m. 1994)​

Children3EducationBowdoin College (BA )
Georgetown University (LLB )Military serviceAllegianceUnited StatesBranchUnited States Army

Service years

1954–1956RankFirst Lieutenant UnitCounterintelligence Corps

Mitchell's voice

Mitchell urging stronger actions by the George H. W. Bush administration

against climate change .
Recorded February 18, 1992

George John Mitchell Jr. (born August 20, 1933) is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. A leading member of the Democratic Party , he served as a United States senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995, and as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995. After retiring from the Senate, Mitchell played a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East . He was appointed United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland (1995–2001) by President Clinton and as United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (2009–2011) by President Barack Obama .

Mitchell was a primary architect of the 1996 Mitchell Principles and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and was the main investigator in two "Mitchell Reports": one on the Arab–Israeli conflict (2001); and one on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball (2007).

Mitchell served as chairman of the Walt Disney Company from 2004 until 2007, and later as chairman of the international law firm DLA Piper . He was the Chancellor of Queen's University in Belfast , Northern Ireland , from 1999 to 2009. Mitchell also has served as a co-chair of the Housing Commission at the Bipartisan Policy Center . He is one of the few people in modern times to have served in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government .

To date, he is the most recent registered Democrat to represent Maine in the U.S. Senate.

Early life

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Origins

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Mitchell was born in Waterville, Maine . His father, George John Mitchell Sr. (born Joseph Kilroy), was born in Ireland and adopted by a Lebanese American

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Since 2002, Mitchell has been a senior fellow and senior research scholar at Columbia University 's Center for International Conflict Resolution , where he works to help end or avert conflicts between nations. He was the chancellor of the Queen's University of Belfast , Northern Ireland , until his resignation in April 2009, and namesake of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship , which sponsors graduate study for twelve Americans each year in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

He is the founder of the Mitchell Institute , in Portland, Maine , whose mission is to increase the likelihood that young people from every community in Maine will aspire to, pursue and achieve a college education. In 2007, he became a visiting Professor in Leeds Metropolitan University 's School of Applied Global Ethics, and the university is developing a new Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution bearing his name.